


Honey Trap

by Thassalia



Category: Trixie Belden Mysteries - Julie Campbell Tatham & Kathryn Kenny
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:30:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thassalia/pseuds/Thassalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up is all about figuring out what you want.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honey Trap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [uniquepov](https://archiveofourown.org/users/uniquepov/gifts).



She still has 400 hours to go for her license, but that’s really just another couple of divorce cases, or if Jackson is kind, a few rounds of sitting at a hotel bar pretending to drink a Pina Colada and doing her best to be sweet as a honey trap, sweet as the rum in her glass which she carefully sips, in order to lure the straying husband. Jackson’s not a bad man. He always counts the bar nights as a 12-hour shift. She qualified for her firearms license so quickly that he acts like he owes her something. Maybe she does. She won him $50 in the pool that said the little blond girl couldn’t shoot straight. Jackson bet on her. He had since the beginning.

It doesn’t feel much like her world – too many strays, husbands or otherwise. Trixie knows that she’s really a small-town girl starring in a big city play. She locks all the locks on her bedroom door, even though she shares an apartment with three giddy stewardesses, sleeps with a nightlight, has her hand on her gun under her pillow and knows that the police are a whole lot more than seconds away. Southern California is a vast, terrifying land of sunshine, cars and crime and she often wonders when the wonders will happen, when she’ll stop being scared. When she will stop feeling so alone.

She’s in the university library trying to study, working harder not to listen to the couple in the stacks behind her bicker about where the boy has been for the past two days.

“I’ve been busy,” he says, a little wheedling, “I’m telling you. I keep telling you!” like he’s not really making an effort. Trixie waits for the girl to give him a break, and is filled with a bit of gleeful surprise when she says, “Well, I guess you’ve got so much to do that you don’t need to make time for me.”

The boy sputters, and says, “No, no,” but Trixie can hear the click of the girls heels as she walks away with purpose. It’s surprisingly satisfying. She’s struggling to return to the tedium of the licensing research when the clearing of a throat startles her.

***  
She licks her pencil, struggling with what to say to Honey. The weekly letter has become a little bit of a pickle.

“Dear Honey,  
Life is sure always an adventure here…”

She pauses. Letter-writing has never been her strong suit and it’s hard to imagine how to convey her world to her best friend. She pictures Honey in her pencil skirt and tight sweaters, her headbands and heels, the fraternity boys picking her up in fancy cars, and the studiousness with which she’s pursuing a career in law. Trixie admires her these days, more than she likes her, but all of that is more to do with being left behind and the way that vicious sting never went away. They made up, they’re still best friends, but there’s a lot of loneliness to be had in a life a world removed from her dreams.

Honey had never done anything wrong except choose a real future over a teenage dream. Or at least that’s what Jim had said to her the last time she’d seen him. And the way he’d said it had been so kind, but it still felt like a slap. He’d always been the one to encourage their dreams. As it was, he was still paying for them.

He’s in town again, a visit to someone she doesn’t know, and he took her out to dinner, somewhere near the beach. Steak and seafood, and ice-tea for her even though he had a glass of beer. It didn’t suit him. He’s still red-haired and freckled, and rangy, and looks like he should guzzle milk straight from the gallon. She wanted to order a drink, just to see what he’d say, but she doesn’t really want anything beyond tea so she stays silent.

She looked across the table at him, and hears the echo of that conversation in her head, hears it in front of her again.

“Are you sure this is still what you want?” he asks, and puts his hand over hers. The warmth rushes through her, the way his fingers stay against her skin. She sees the way that people look when they come out of those motel rooms, dazed and dazzled and sneaking and it excites her and turns her stomach and she moves her hand out from under Jim’s.

What does she want? She doesn’t much like sitting in those bars, those cars, with a camera in her hand, sleep-sand crusting her eyelashes. But she likes those moments of following, putting things together when she gives Jackson a report. Alone is hard, but it’s hers.

Jim looks at her like maybe he’d take her away from everything, and that feels so nice, but away isn’t why she came to this new city with oranges in the trees. He’s never said anything, just gives her these glances from those eyes that have seen all of the things she’s mastered and failed at. Seen her at her best, although probably never at her worst.

“How’s school?” she asks. “”Have you bought the land yet?”

Everyone is in school still, aside from Dan. He seems so far away, a young police officer in New York, but in some ways Trixie feels closest to him. He’s making his way, doing what he said he was going to, and everyone - from her own parents, to his uncle, to her closest friends - seem so scared about his choice. He called her one night, sounded tired and maybe something else that she didn’t quite know how to identify, but if she had to guess, she’d say he sounded like whisky and long days. He sounded like the men who sit next to her in those bars, trying to get her to take them home.

“Just keep listening to yourself, Trix,” he’d said, “And be careful.” Good advice, harder to follow, but she was trying.

“I’m putting off buying the land,” Jim says, though she knows this from Honey. “I’ve put the money for it in a different trust. I know it’s still a good idea, but I want more time to make sure I’m really capable of all this.”

Jim is getting his MBA, at the encouragement of Matthew Wheeler, working part time at Wheeler Industries. “Education is wonderful,” he’d said, “but you won’t do anyone any good if you don’t know how to manage the business end of an institution.”

“Is that what you want?” she asks Jim, hoping that he’ll be honest with her. It was so long since anyone had been honest, except for Jackson who was always honest but didn’t care about hurting her feelings.

“I think so,” he says, and swallows the rest of his beer. “It seems like such a good idea.”

That was the benefit of not having choices, she’d learned. Or at least the choices everyone wanted you to make. When she’d realized that college wasn’t going to be an option, moving away and getting her P.I. license seemed like a natural choice. It answered so many questions, made her feel like she was in control of her life. Everyone else, aside from Dan, had found themselves in school, then found themselves adrift.

Sure, Brian was in medical school, but it was so expensive and he was working nights at the coroner’s office to pay the bills. Mart had decided that he didn’t want to be part of industrial agriculture, but didn’t know what he wanted to do. Di was going to secretarial school and doing community theater, while Honey studied communications and pre-law.

It was everything they’d talked about - doing good, making a difference, following their dreams, just skewed a little...sideways.

“How’s Sam?” she asks, swallowing hard. Samantha Reeves, blond, and blue eyed like Trixie herself, but tall and elegant and sophisticated and...there. A year younger than Jim, and just as smart. They’d looked beautiful together the one time she’d met them when Jim had brought her home for the summer.

“She’s good,” Jim says. “She’s always good. She wants to get married.”

Her lungs are suddenly too big inside her chest, like the breath she was taking pushed them too hard against her ribs.

“That’s so big,” she says. “So grown up.”

He looks at her, the ocean stirring out there in the distance, a white noise, or maybe that was just the buzzing in her ears.

“I’m grown up,” he says softly. “So are you.” And his foot presses against hers. “We have to be realistic.”

“I, um, I need to go,” she says, struggling with herself.

Jim’s face falls. “Oh,” he says. “Well, I’ll be here for another day or two.”

“Okay,” she stands.

“Be careful,” he says, and rises. “Please be careful.”

Everyone so concerned with her safety, and they have no idea that she can carry a gun, and shoot it. She’s probably safer than ever. But she appreciates it. Sort of.

She barely said goodbye, rushing to leave the restaurant. She’d brought her own car, a little MGB that Brian had helped her restore. It was the best thing about California, the wind and sun on her face in this little rattletrap car.

Now she licked her pencil, and pressed it against words to Honey, and checked the time, and thought about Jim marrying Samantha and suddenly there just wasn’t anything left to say.

Her phone rang. “He’s going out soon,” the girl from the library said on the other end. “Can you follow him?

She didn’t hesitate. It was just following. Not a mystery, not a case, not really. Just following. When Jim answered the phone from his hotel room, his pleasure at her voice was evident.

“Can you pick me up?” she asked. “I don’t want to take my own car.”

***  
“He goes away,” the girl had said, “And doesn’t tell me where.”

Trixie doesn’t tell her that she’d heard the fight. Doesn’t say that she thought he was probably seeing another girl, and that this one was well out of it. The girl has dark hair, and light eyes, and doesn’t look like much disappoints her.

“Oh, I know,” she’d said at Trixie’s look. “I don’t care any more. I can get a new boyfriend. But he’s doing something he shouldn’t.”

“Like what?”

“I see you here, reading those books. You’re a private detective. Are you any good?”

There were laws, and then there was truth and her answer was somewhere in between. “I’m a good detective,” she said. That felt right. It certainly wasn’t a lie.

“He goes somewhere and I can’t follow him. He knows what I drive. My dad got me a convertible.”

Trixie has seen the big finned car outside the library. It’s beautiful. You can’t hide in that car.

“Why do you want to know?” she asks, but now that curiosity is tingling through her, a happy little rush better than the champagne bubbles that had coursed through her blood at the last holiday party Jackson had thrown.

“He can’t keep a secret,” the girl had said. “But he’s keeping this one. I want to know what it is.”

“Okay,” Trixie agree, swaying lightly on her toes in anticipation. “I’ll find out.”

***  
Jim drove a dark sedan that made him look like a cop, but it wasn’t a little yellow soft top and that was good. He looked older in a dark sweater and jeans than he had at dinner with a tie and a jacket.

She wore jeans as well, and a white shirt and a scarf around her hair. It was chilly, but she didn’t mind. She held her sweater in her hand.

It was midnight.

“Where are we going?” he asked, and there was a hint of laughter in his voice. She’d expected a reprimand, but maybe he was going to be Jim again, partner in crime. Partner in general.

“We’re following a man. A boy. A student, I guess.” She shut the car door. He revved the engine. “It’s close to here. Hopefully we’re not too late.”

“Tell me where to go.”

The apartment building was close to hers. That meant he didn’t have that much money. The girl hadn’t looked like the kind of girl who went out with boys who worked. Hmmm.

They were looking for a white Oldsmobile. Long, the girl had said, and Trixie remembered it from the library. It wasn’t in front of the building, and the disappointment rose easily in her throat.

“We missed him,” she said.

“Let’s drive around,” Jim suggested. “Maybe he hasn’t gone far.”

The drove through the dark streets, lit up only by the occasional streetlight. It was quiet in the car, and comfortable. There was no sign of the white car, but they kept driving in ever expanding circles, talking in soft voices about family, and absent friends.

“You’re so far away,” Jim said at one point, and she didn’t think he meant the miles, but she’d never been very good at picking up clues from him, unless they involved someone else’s mystery.

“I like being far away,” she said. “It’s the only way I can keep working towards what I want. If I were close to home, it’d be so hard.”

He nodded like that made sense.

“If it weren’t for you, though,” she said, even though she’d thanked him a hundred times, “It would be impossible.”

“You found me,” he said, and turned slightly so he could put his hand on her cheek, “you saved me. There’s no price to put on that.”

The fund he’d set up paid for her apartment, and the gas for her car, so she could work for Jackson and feed herself. So she could pay for licenses and fees since Jackson wouldn’t even though he did for the other boys in the office. But at least he’d given her a chance. In all her growing up, it had never occurred to Trixie that she’d be dependent upon men whom she could never repay.

The dashboard clock read 1:30 in the morning, and there was no sign of the white car. “We should go home,” she said.

“Maybe we’ll try again tomorrow,” Jim said.

When he dropped her off, he got out and opened her door, taking her hand like he would if she were someone else. 

“What are you doing?” she whispered, and he brushed by her ear with his mouth, warm sweet breath and the solid heat of his body, so familiar, taking her back years and years, whole lifetimes past her 19 years.

“Making sure you’re safe,” he said against her cheek.

“I keep myself safe,” she said, and slid under his arm to go into her apartment building.

It was easier the next night. They waited in the car around the corner until the boy, Barry, left on his mysterious errand. 

Trixie wished she were driving. Jim followed too close, like he wanted to be seen. They bickered about it, until he finally slowed down, let the car get far enough ahead to be inconspicuous.

The building he pulled up at looked like a warehouse, and they drove past, circling back around until they could park. They got out, moving through the shadows, through the jasminey scented air, with Trixie in front and it felt like old times, friends at her back, a partner in reach. Excitement. Adventure.

The door creaked when they slid it open, breath catching, stomachs tightening and she felt Jim’s hand on her hip, holding her still and close. No one came.

It wasn’t until they rounded a corner, nose to nose with a sweatered thug with a snub-nosed pistol, that the gravity of the situation hit them both.

She’d learned not to resist. Well, mostly she’d learned not to get caught, but Jackson was big on not resisting. He disliked getting hit. And mostly, murder wasn’t worth it for the sorts of cases they took. Cheaters and thieves were desperate, but usually to bargain. Trixie hoped this wasn’t any different.

The thug brought them to a larger area of the warehouse. Stacks of marijuana were being bound together while the boy from the library sat at a table in front of a ledger.

When he saw the two of them being lead in at gun point, he put a pencil behind his ear and said, “Well, shit.”

“Miriam?” he asked, and Trixie nodded. There was no point in protecting her non-paying employer.

“Tie them up,” he said to the thug. Another two boys continued bundling, and Jim said, “This is illegal.” It made Trixie blush, the naivete. The outrage. But still, it was sweet.

“I told her I wasn’t cheating on her,” Barry said, plaintive. “It takes a lot of dough to keep her happy.”

Trixie just shrugged, tensing her muscles so that when the ropes went around her, they wouldn’t be too tight. She tried to flex her arms towards Jim so he’d do the same, but he was too busy glaring at everyone around him.

Barry was up and about by this time, the ledger in his knapsack, and the bricks of marijuana packed up.

“Don’t call the police,” he said, standing close to Trixie. “You’re a pretty girl, and I wouldn’t want anyone to hurt you.”

The threat didn’t sound idle. She could see Jim trying desperately to rise out of his seat.

Ten minutes later, the men were gone, and it was just Trixie and Jim, bound to chairs in an empty warehouse.

Her ankles were easy enough, and once her legs were free, she just had to tip the chair. She fell hard onto her knees, but it moved the ropes enough to allow her to free her arms.

Jim was still bound.

He looked up at her, vulnerable. She had a knife in her sock. Her firearms license didn’t extend to carrying it after hours to a case that wasn’t really a case. Miriam could have followed him. She just didn’t want to and that was fine with Trixie. There’d always be people who didn’t want to see the truth themselves, wanted it filtered through someone else’s lens to take away the sting.

Jim rattled himself in the chair and she moved closer. She bent and took the switchblade out of her sock, and his eyes got bigger.

“I’m not a little girl,” she said, and moved in. He was sweating, but he smelled clean and warm, like home.

“No,” he said, “you’re not.”

They’re so close that she can feel his heart beating. She straddles the outside of his legs. It is bold, and intimate, and she flushes with embarrassment, but she hears his heart beat faster and she presses against him.

He can’t move. That thought is all consuming. He can’t move. She could do...anything to him.

She touches his hair, fingers gentle, moves her fingers to his neck. He’s warm, and rough, and she’s trembling.

It’s natural to kiss him. So natural it feels like she doesn’t have a choice. His mouth is warm, and hard, lips gentle against hers and and she sinks down onto his lap as he strains against her, the kiss damp, and hot and overwhelming. Her thighs tighten against his, and he moans against her. She feels it vibrate through her whole body.

All those photos, all those people, moving around outside of themselves, cheating, lying, dizzy eyed, and if it feels like this to be that bad, she suddenly understands a little of what drives them.

“Untie me,” he says, and there isn’t any naivete left, just a fierce need. He didn’t sound like the boy she’d grown up with anymore, but someone infinitely older. This kiss wasn’t a revelation to him.

She moves her mouth away from him, but doesn’t get up. “I don’t think so,” she says. “No, maybe not.”

He thumps the chair up and down, but it doesn’t shake her off.

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.”

Still, she doesn’t get up.

“Don’t,” he says. 

It isn’t their first kiss. That was chaste, and sweet, and broke her heart. Her 16th birthday, and he’d come down from school a few days early to celebrate with her. He’d loved her then, she knew. But his life was somewhere else, filled with new things to learn, and new girls and new everythings. He’d met Samantha a few weeks later.

“I didn’t know,” she said, and moved towards his mouth again. He met her halfway, and this time the kiss was bruising, desperate, tongues against teeth. She felt him stir against her center, and she had to hold onto his shoulders.

“Come home with me,” he said.

“For tonight? For forever?”

He shook his head. “Both, neither, I don’t know.”

“You’re getting married,” she said, and the words wrapped around her like a bitter wind. She got off his lap.

“No,” he said. “Samantha wanted to. And it made me realize I wanted something else.”

“Me?”

“Maybe. Yes. But more than that.”

“More,” she says, and that feels less like a burden, and more like maybe a future. She climbs back onto his lap. “There’s room for more here. With me. I don’t want to go home.”

“Yes,” he says. “We’ll figure it. It’s what I want. More. Not less. A future. Adventure. Love. You and I, maybe.”

“When we grow up?” she asks, and feels so much less lonely, a whole new mystery unfolding in front of her.

“As we grow up,” he agrees.

She takes the switchblade, opens it, and reaches over his shoulder to unbind his hands. The ropes come between us as he folds her up, but neither of them mind the frayed ends or twisted strands.


End file.
